Shaila Catherine is the founder of Bodhi Courses, an online Dhamma classroom (bodhicourses.org), and Insight Meditation South Bay, a Buddhist meditation center in Silicon Valley in California (imsb.org).
She has been practicing meditation since 1980, accumulating more than eight years of silent retreat experience, and has taught internationally since 1996. Shaila studied with masters in India, Thailand, and Nepal, and also with the founders of western meditation centers. She completed a one-year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhāna, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity.
Shaila practiced intensively under the direction of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw for nine years, absorbing a precise and rigorous approach to samādhi and vipassanā that continues to inform her teaching. She authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhāna and Vipassanā to help make these techniques accessible to western practitioners.
Lecture of Shaila Catherine: